The Liberal party in three states – Victoria, South Australia and Queensland – vowed to drop state based renewable energy targets if elected. This follows Federal Liberal Party war on renewables and climate policy conducted since Abbott took power in 2013, continued under Prime Minister Turnbull. While climate action at the Federal level has followed a rollercoast ride in the past two decades, states are increasingly taking more action to protect their citizens. In the latest round of attacks at the Federal level, Manchester University climate change PhD student Marc Hudson argues that what we are seeing is not actually a policy battle, but a politics battle, and one that […]

Solar Reserve has a plan to build a solar thermal power station with storage at Port Augusta which would diversify South Australian electricity generation, bringing jobs and solar innovation to the state. The Aurora project as envisaged by Solar Reserve will create 1,000 construction jobs and 4,000 flow on jobs, with up to 50 ongoing jobs in managing and maintenance of the power station. In response from a question, the CEO of Solar Reserve said that there is also potential to manufacture the heliostats (big mirrors) in the region. He estimated about 60 percent content used in the Port Augusta project may come from local suppliers. Shadow Energy Minister Dan […]

Renewables generation in South Australia has been under heat in some sections of the media (See Judith Sloan Energy price reveals folly of renewables in The Australian) for a spike in wholesale energy prices in June 2016, but a new detailed academic analysis reveals the spike in wholesale prices was due to high gas prices caused by exporters needing to fill export contracts and gas generators gaming the market. More moderate and knowledgeable commentators like Associate Professor Hugh Saddler at The Conversation highlighted South Australia’s electricity price woes are more due to gas than wind. I followed the discussion at a seminar in Melbourne today by Energy researcher Dylan McConnell […]

The fifth anniversay of British Petroleum’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill has just passed. Could such a devastating oil spill happen in Australia? Conservationists with the Wilderness Society and other environmental groups say it is a distinct possibility, off Australia’s southern shores in the Great Australian Bight. And it is British Petroleum (BP) again in the hot seat with exploration licences about to do some deep sea exploratory drilling. On Monday April 20th activists from the Wilderness Society converted the statue of Colonel Light in Adelaide to a sea of black to imitate an oil spill. They were highlighting that BP is refusing to release oil spill modelling or emergency plans […]

The Port Augusta community have called for South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill to step up to help fund construction of a solar thermal power station. The call from Repower Port Augusta comes in reponse to an Alinta Energy assessment (Draft Milestone 3 Balance of Study Report March 2015 PDF) that found a solar thermal power station was still uneconomic to build without government support. The proposed 50MW project is estimated to cost $577 million, about $150 million greater than it’s commercial viability. Australia currently does not have any ‘baseload’ concentrating solar thermal with molten salt energy storage power plants. The Port Augusta proposed power station could be Australia’s first using […]

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has visited the bushfire stricken communities in the Adelaide Hills outlining disaster recovery and short-term income assistance payments to bushfire victims, but refusing to be drawn on whether climate change has influenced bushfires. I investigate some of the recent science into the links between bushfire and climate Change for South Australia and the climate of denial being put forward by the Abbott government. You can read a report of Abbott’s visit to the fire ravaged area by Shalailah Medhora at the Guardian: Adelaide bushfires: PM announces cash payments for people left homeless. The Adelaide Hills Sampson Flat bushfire has burnt more than 12,000 hectares, with up […]

[clear] By Sarah Capper @sarah_capper 14th February 2014 Our federal representatives, who we ushered in with gusto last September, returned to Canberra this week – the land of what Wikipedia (hey, if it’s good enough for the Environment Minister) describes as being home to “politics, public service, pornography,pyrotechnics, pot and prostitution – the “Six P’s” as they are known.” Let’s make it seven: PRIDE. It may seem like an eternity, but the Abbott Government has been in power for just over 100 days (approaching the 150-day-mark). Typically, modern Australian political parties get at least two terms to flex their governing muscles. The first term is often reserved for doing the “tricky” business – running with agendas that are […]

View Larger Map Adelaide Seat profile By Anais Chevalier, 11 August, 2013 The seat of Adelaide is one of the original South Australian electorates. Created in 1903, its first MP was a former Premier of SA and one of the driving forces behind federation, Charles Kingston. While often seen as a Labor seat, it has been held by non-Labor candidates, notably Liberal Trish Worth from 1993 to 2004. The seat was named after the city, which in turn was named after Queen Adelaide, the wife of King William IV who was on the throne when the site for the capital of the new colony was chosen in 1836. The seat […]

View Larger Map Hindmarsh Seat Profile By Jacqueline Dettman 1 August 2013 The seat of Hindmarsh (not to be confused with the suburb by the same name) has been my home since I moved to Adelaide nine years ago. The area is located to the inner west of the CBD, and is comprised of both coastal and inland suburbs. Hindmarsh was named after Adelaide’s first governor Sir John Hindmarsh, who proclaimed the province of South Australia here in 1836. Hindmarsh is an original seat, having had its inception in 1903 at the time of the first federal election. Historically a safe Labor seat, Labor lost its strong hold on Hindmarsh […]